March 20, 2008

Battle for the Title of Week's Most Awesome Dialogue. Yes, on GH. I Can't Believe it Either.

I can't even believe that I am writing a post about how there are three ridiculously awesome contenders for the Week's (perhaps "Month's" or "Spring's," in fact) Most Awesome Dialogue, all on General Effing Hospital (that's the unabridged title), but there are. Oh, there are. So you must help us decide which will reign supreme.

Full quotes after the cut. Warning: They may make you start to feel optimistic about GH. In the same week as violence-induced miscarriage number 83 and mob war number 243. Intense confusion and brow-furrowing may ensue.

The scenes between Robin and Patrick this week were so awesome. Kimberly McCullough and Jason Thompson are incredible together. The only downside to their conversation was that it made me seethe with Soap Opera Rage all over again about how utterly shiteous Night Shift was.

So anyway, check out Robin being all historically accurate and non-shrewy, and Patrick making a case for permanent restoration of the hotly modifier:

Robin: Do you have a minute?Patrick: Not if it's going to be another no-win conversation where you get to tell me once again I'm nothing but a sperm donor.Robin: If I said that, I was overcompensating.Patrick: If, Robin? I thought we loved each other. Which means we should be honest with each other. Which is why I told you the truth. I didn't want to be a father. But it happened. By accident. Kinda took the decision out of my hands. Now the baby you're carrying is part of me, and I get to have a reaction, whether you like it or not.Robin: Okay, I realized something tonight. I'm the biggest hypocrite that ever drew breath. And I'm sorry. [cut to Tuesday] I should have told you it was your baby the moment I found out I was pregnant.Patrick: Do you expect me to argue?Robin: You have every right to be angry with me.Patrick: Don't give me permission to feel, Robin. Help me to try to understand. You wanted this baby more than anything. So why do you hate me so much for making it with you?Robin: In my heart I always wanted to have your baby, but you said you didn't want to be a father, so I thought it would be best if you just didn't know.Patrick: You didn't lie to me to protect me. You lied to shut me out.Robin: I know that's how it seems, okay, but I realized that you can't lie about a child for your own convenience. Not because you justify to yourself that the father would be better off not knowing or the child would be better off not knowing who the father is.Patrick: Robin, I didn't want a baby in the abstract, when your pregnancy was still a hypothetical. And you took that as a chance to never tell me it was my baby in the first place.Robin: Look, I know I made a mess of this. And it's so ironic because out of all people, I should know the dangers that come from lying about a child. I had a front row seat when Carly and Jason were lying about Michael, I mean to go even further back when my mom lied to my dad about me and didn't even know about me for the first six years of my life. My mom was wrong. Carly was wrong. And now, you know, it's my child, it's a baby that's growing inside of me, a baby that you said you didn't want. And so I lied. And I was wrong. And I'm sorry and I mean I'm trying to undo it, but I'm just obviously making a mess of that too.

Jasper Jacks is the best mothereffing truth-teller in the history of truthy truth-telling about truth.

Jax: Michael shot Kate? You can't seriously be thinking about covering this up. Your child bought an illegal handgun and shot an innocent woman.Carly: It was an accident. He dropped the gun and it went off. He didn't shoot her.Jax: It wasn't an accident he had the gun in the first place. I can't believe that you're going to pretend like nothing happened.Carly: What do you want me to do?Jax: You could start by going to the police and telling them how Kate ended up with a bullet in her chest.Carly: I'm not going to go to the police so they can ship Michael away for 30 years. I will never let that happen.Jax: He's 12 years old. He's not going to go to prison, okay? Besides, it was an accident. Carly, you're not going to have a kid in three years, let alone 30, if you don't step in and do something now.Carly: I don't see how turning him over to the cops is going to help my son.Jax: He needs to learn that there are consequences to his actions.Carly: You saw him, Jax. He was devastated. He's learned his lesson. What we need to do is let it go.Jax: See, this is exactly why Michael is messed up. Because from a very young age, he's been taught that the rules don't apply if your last name is Corinthos or Morgan.Carly: That is not true.Jax: Carly, how many times have Sonny and Jason been arrested? Actually, a better question would be how many times have Sonny and Jason been arrested, and have actually paid for the laundry list of crimes that they've committed?Carly: This has nothing to do with Sonny and Jason, okay?Jax: They're the reason that his life is surrounded by violence. I mean, he lives behind a bullet proof glass. I mean, he's got bodyguards following him around wherever he goes. You don't think that has some kind of effect on Michael? Carly, most boys his age dream about become doctors and firemen. Your child wants to be a mob boss. This doesn't concern you at all?Carly: Of course it concerns me. Jax: Then prove it. Stop protecting him and get him the help he needs.Carly: What he needs is to forget this ever happened. That's what he needs.Jax: Of course. And how many innocent people are supposed to get hurt, huh? He's already shot one woman. Almost killed you and the baby. Carly: He didn't cause the explosion, Jax!Jax: You wouldn't have been in the cannery if it wasn't for Michael. If he hadn't bought that gun, he wouldn't have shot Kate, he wouldn't have felt the need to run away.Carly: All this is Michael's fault now, is that it?Jax: No, I'm not blaming Michael. I'm blaming his parents for not teaching him that the law is there to protect him. That he doesn't need to buy a handgun to protect himself.Carly: So now I'm a bad mother? Jax: No, I'm not saying you're a bad mother. But you're misguided. Your loyalty to Sonny and Jason has seriously clouded your judgment, Carly.Carly: Sonny is Michael and Morgan's father. What would you have me do?Jax: I don't know. Something better than you're doing now. You might be okay with Michael and Morgan being surrounded by Sonny's crazy violent world, but I'm not going to let that happen to our child.

This one is short but sweet. I only wish every female character would realize that sex with Sonny is a one-way ticket to wrong-ville.

Alexis: Not that I'm not the happiest mother in the world to have
given birth to this beautiful child, but what the hell was I thinking
having sex with her father? Out of all the men in Port Charles, I had
to zero in on the most dangerous one.

Comments

Robin and Patrick's dialog was pretty horrible IMO. Patrick's going on and on about how he was being honest with her and allowing her to APOLOGIZE to him when his lie was worse! This guy treat her like crap for the last 9 months and because she doesn't tell him RIGHT AWAY that he's the father of the child she is carrying, she has to go beg for his forgiveness because SHE'S the biggest hypocrite? CRAP. At least her lie didn't hurt anyone. Besides it's not so easy to tell a man he's the father of your child after he tells you that he is glad she didn't manipulate him into having a child with him.

On the other hand, Jax's dialog was kick-ass! I can't believe they let carly's little bitch have a sane opinion.

If and when Jax and Carly do divorce, I want him to find a way to get custody of Morgan. It's too late for MyKill, but Morgan can still be saved. And Jax? Is about a million times the parent either one of Morgan's bio parents could ever hope to be. He actually cares about the safety and well-being of the kids. I'd been kind of meh on Jax in recent years, but the way he talks about "my family" and so clearly wants to just stomp Sonny like a bug for endangering them kind of makes me swoon a little. I kind of have a thing for guys who take so strongly to their wives' children from previous relationships like Jax has. The man even loves MyKil for crying out loud. That man deserves some kind of Stepfather Of The Year (Century?) award. I can't see how anyone can cozy up to MyKill, that little sociopath in training.

Agree with your post, except Jax is only eligible for Stepfather of the Year Award. Why? Because he's only been doing it 11 months. He's got a ways to go to catch up to the reigning champ and Stepfather of the Century: Mac, the guy who's logged nine or 10 (actual, not SORAS) years at this point of awesomely parenting children not his own.

Lynne,

I was hoping the various Sonny/Carly smackdowns were the signal of the beginning of character change, that maybe, finally, we'd see a glimmer of self-awareness leading to long-awaited, much-needed reformation.

As far as Patrick and Robin go, I've learned to take what I can get because, when I get mad, I rant and then the writers see that and think, "Oh they want more bad stuff to happen then? Here's another year of hell!" I thought the scene was wonderful and more than we've been able to hope for over the last twelve months what with hypocritical statement after hypocritical statement coming from both sides.

Saw the scences with Patrick and Robin and I loved it and the scence with Jax and Carly was one of the best but Jax should take his own words to heat when dealing with his brother Jerry to not just Micheal.

yea jax..please keep on telling it like it is..it seemes as though a writer is protesting mob crap like the fans, and is gettin away with it(YAY)but..i seriously wish the mob stuff wud end...killing, war, guns,blood..AGHH..when will it stop...i hate the fact that the zaccarha's are new b/c that means the mob scene wont go away for a while...

i'm a die-hard scrubs fan, and although their dialogue was great, i had to vote for jax only because he's the first character to ever call carly out regarding michael..and it was great to see jax get his 'balls' back..

Jax is unfortunately wasting his breath. I think that if Michael killed more people, they would still excuse his behavior and go on doing what they do all the time. Carly and Sonny are pitiful as parents. Thanks for the blog!

Okay, Jose Cuervo is a friend of mine tonight, so forgive me if this reply is a bit disjointed:

Jax is the motherfucking shit. Thatis all. So he got my vote. And aside from the obvious, i.e.-he temporarily recovered the blindness he's experienced as a result of the golden hoo-ha since 2006, I'll tell you why:

B/c, as long as Patrick is allowed to act like he's been the damn saint the holiday was named after while Robin grovels at his feet for what she, most assuredly, DID do wrong, then I am pissed and I'm gonna STAY pissed. Until he acknowledges that he was the shittiest boyfriend and ex-boyfriend in the history of boyfriends and ex-boyfriend's in soaps, for the last 8 months, and then acknowledges that he LIED TO HER ABOUT SOMETHING THAT COULD HAVE GRIEVOUSLY AFFECTED SHE AND THE BABY'S HEALTH FOR MONTHS, AND THEN APOLOGIZES FOR SAID ACTIONS, he will remain the assholiest asshole to ever be an asshole to me. And the comment about his precious car pissed me off as well.

And as much as I would like to insist that they have him crawl across broken glass, while naked and on fire, begging Robin for forgiveness the whole way, I would be SATISFIED w/one-two 3-5 minute scenes wherein he acknowledged that which was carelessly cruel and insensitive in his actions, and apologized for said actions, and made an honest promise to try to have some realization of how his selfish-assholeness truly affects other people in the future. That's it. And I would be happy.

Marianne, Jose or no Jose, you're right! So have a shot for me and we'll both keep waiting for Guza to stop making Robin responsible for everything that goes wrong on GH.

Sadly, we'll both die of alchohol poisoning waiting for Guza to write the real Robin. Making her the evildoer in her relationship and breakup with Patrick is a crock!!! He not only rewrites ancient history, but even history that took place minutes ago.

I'm glad he is less of an ass today, but what about his months of asshat cruel behavior and his LYING to Robin about the condom breaking thus risking her and her baby's health.

Don't say he didn't know she was pregnant. Ofcourse she might have gotten knocked up! What kind of MD are you? Not to mention he exposed her fragile immune system to Leyla and whoever else he has bedded since they broke up.

I had to vote for "can't decide." They were all great. Scrubs would have won if Patrick had in turn apologized for his behavior that made you take away his hotly modifier. Jax would have won if he had never married Carly in the first place. ;) Alexis would have won if she had thrown Lucky up against the door and used him to end her 2 year drought.

I actually had to use my rewind button for the first time during this show (opposed to my poorly overused ffwd button) to hear Jax again (like three times... okay more like five). As for Alexis' line, I got a nice "heee" from it. Awesome Writer Rules! (and so to you Becca, now what is this about your shoes?).

Geez, those Jax lines are made entirely of win. I want to start a Jax fan club based solely on this excerpt. I *heart* Scrubs, but Jax gets all of my love and devotion for at least the next three weeks. Rock on, Jasper. Rock on.

Count me in with Marianne and Melina about the scrubs convo. I can't give the writers kudos for redeeming Robin's "hypocrisy" when they are the ones who insisted on that hypocrisy in the first place. Laud-worthy writing would have been to remain true to Robin's character in the first place, to hold PATRICK accountable for his ongoing ass-hattery and have the relationship based on equal partners instead of Robin continually being the one to apologize and grovel. Have Robin stand on her own two feet instead of having Patrick leap to her defense every time she's attacked by Devlin, Pip, evil AIDS-hating homophobes, etc. (One time is cute -- continually just makes Robin look weak.) Most of all, if Patrick HAS to be the one to defend the (as written) poor widdle helpless Robin, can he please muster a defense based on her actual ... you know ... doctor skills? Every defense consists of "Robin is a great person and SHE'S HAVING MY BABY!" Jeesh. Is he channeling Paul Anka? And how is her pregnancy at all relevant as to what sort of doctor she is?

So no, I cannot give the writers kudos for something THEY mishandled so badly in the first place.